


it's a twin thing

by noodlerdoodler



Category: The Haunting of Hill House (TV 2018), The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Character Death, Character Study, Gen, Ghosts, Inspired by The Haunting of Hill House, Klaus Hargreeves Needs Help, Klaus Hargreeves and Vanya Hargreeves are Twins, Multi, Other, Twins, Vanya Hargreeves Deserves Better, Vanya Hargreeves Needs A Hug
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-22
Updated: 2020-11-22
Packaged: 2021-03-10 05:42:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 492
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27668380
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/noodlerdoodler/pseuds/noodlerdoodler
Summary: Once, Klaus had run down the stairs in their mother’s heels so fast that he had tripped and broken his jaw. He’d had it wired shut for eight weeks after that, making it impossible to scream on that final night in the house when all hell broke loose. Nobody mentioned the obvious: that corpses had their jaws wired shut too. Or that, when it had happened, Vanya had collapsed to the floor in the kitchen and sobbed silently as pain took her over.
Relationships: Klaus Hargreeves & Vanya Hargreeves
Comments: 1
Kudos: 71





	it's a twin thing

Everybody always use to joke about the twins being psychic. 

Maybe it was because none of the other siblings felt such a strong connection with each other or maybe it was because of the one time that Diego had managed to sneak a VHS tape of _The Shining_ into the house. Or maybe it was because, sometimes, there was no other way to explain how Klaus and Vanya affected each other. Like they were standing on opposite sides of a mirror, touching fingertips through glass. 

“It’s a twin thing,” Vanya would shrug shyly, when her mother asked where her brother was and she knew immediately without even turning to look. 

There _was_ something odd about how Vanya jerked awake instinctively whenever Klaus had one of his nightmares, leaning over to turn on the bedside lamp immediately. Maybe it was because they slept in such close quarters- or maybe it really was a twin thing. Sometimes, when she was older, Vanya wondered if her brother’s limbs stiffened too when her sleep paralysis took hold.

It was hard to check for sure when he was in rehab, across the country. 

Once, Klaus had run down the stairs in their mother’s heels so fast that he had tripped and broken his jaw. He’d had it wired shut for eight weeks after that, making it impossible to scream on that final night in the house when all hell broke loose. Nobody mentioned the obvious: that corpses had their jaws wired shut too. Or that, when it had happened, Vanya had collapsed to the floor in the kitchen and sobbed silently as pain took her over. 

As they’d grown older, the family had grown further apart and the rippling “twin effect” had become harder to track. Vanya often knew if her brother was sober or high and, if he had just returned to rehab, sometimes sweated through withdrawals alongside him. She had no idea that it worked both ways until she jotted down an unusual pattern in her journal.

When Vanya took her medication, little pills that kept her on track, her brother would wrestle helplessly with his addiction. If she stopped, (if she ran out, if she experimented, if she wanted to remember what the pain felt like), Klaus would claim a sobriety chip. It made sense to her. 

“I’m just so cold,” Klaus stammered into a payphone one night after escaping from rehab yet again, “I’m so cold and my arms and legs- they feel so stiff. Like I’ve been stuffed in a freezer.” 

They hadn’t known at the time that it was a twin thing, (of course they didn’t, without Vanya there to point it out), but maybe they realised when they uncovered the body. Her body. Back in Hill House, where everything had gone so wrong all those years ago. After years of anguished, starved waiting for her return, the house had finally claimed Vanya. 

And where one twin goes, the other follows.


End file.
